Waste of money. They apparently haven't spent enough time at Legion, walked around and really looked closely at the steel girders, the rusty rivets, and spawling concrete. It's just too decrepit, too big, with too many problems to make substantial improvements.

Questions I have not heard answered:
Has the B'ham Bowl game committed to a new smaller facility?
Has the Magic City Classic committed to a new smaller facility?
How would the BJCC stadium serve the World Games needs?

If the answers are negative, B'ham would have to keep Legion Field serviceable for them no matter what UAB wants to do. Committing funds for both facilities would appear problematic at best, but the "bird in the hand" principle may apply.

(11-30-2017 05:21 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote: Questions I have not heard answered:
Has the B'ham Bowl game committed to a new smaller facility?
Has the Magic City Classic committed to a new smaller facility?
How would the BJCC stadium serve the World Games needs?

If the answers are negative, B'ham would have to keep Legion Field serviceable for them no matter what UAB wants to do. Committing funds for both facilities would appear problematic at best, but the "bird in the hand" principle may apply.

If the costs of maintaining Legion Field exceed the revenue these events bring to the city, then it doesn't matter.

I have very little doubt the Birmingham Bowl would be thrilled with a smaller, nicer facility in a better location. The Classic is different, but ultimately the city shouldn't waste its money maintaining a facility for a single event a year.

Perhaps all three questions will be answered in the affirmative before the City Council must decide on the $25 to $30 million renovations to Legion Field. IF NOT, then Legion Field is what they and UAB will have for the foreseeable future. The city will just have to make the best of it.

In mho, Legion Field should have been replaced by a modern MPF by 2000, but it was not to be. So here we are in 2017 still without its replacement facility.

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

It's better than nothing, but still a worn out dump in an run down part of town. A newer facility in Uptown, within walking distance of restaurants & motels, would be astronomically better!

That "run down part of town? was populated by middle class whites until US Steel shut down at the end of the 1970s. Many UA medical students lived in Elyton Village housing (including my wife in her first marriage) at that time. When the shut down of USS cost the area 30,000 good paying jobs, the people moved out and because of panic selling, property values dropped leading to the present demographics. Many, perhaps most, of those homes are still owned as rental properties by people living outside the city.

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

May I suggest a source of opinion from a completely unbiased source?

Google up the Birmingham Bowl and read the comments of the various fan bases of visiting teams and see what they have to say about Legion Field. If you're truly interested you can look up the teams year by year and look at their message boards after the game.

Just remember that you'll be reading the comments of P5 teams who play in decent modern stadiums, so they'll expect something approaching what they routinely see at home and away games. In some cases they play in stadiums not as nice as what is intended at the BJCC.

I can save you time, though - they universally think it's a crappy old rustbucket of a stadium in a really bad part of town, and they are not Blazer fans being pissy.

I urge you to go read them for yourself. I'd go pull some quotes but that might look like I had cherry picked particularly bad examples, so do it for yourself, please.

(11-16-2017 06:32 PM)cotton1991 Wrote: Good news for Memphis is that the UTk fanbase is too snooty to lower themselves to hire Mike Norvell.

(12-01-2017 02:01 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:

(12-01-2017 09:11 AM)Bham Blazer Wrote:

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

It's better than nothing, but still a worn out dump in an run down part of town. A newer facility in Uptown, within walking distance of restaurants & motels, would be astronomically better!

That "run down part of town? was populated by middle class whites until US Steel shut down at the end of the 1970s. Many UA medical students lived in Elyton Village housing (including my wife in her first marriage) at that time. When the shut down of USS cost the area 30,000 good paying jobs, the people moved out and because of panic selling, property values dropped leading to the present demographics. Many, perhaps most, of those homes are still owned as rental properties by people living outside the city.

(12-01-2017 02:01 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote: That "run down part of town? was populated by middle class whites until US Steel shut down at the end of the 1970s. Many UA medical students lived in Elyton Village housing (including my wife in her first marriage) at that time. When the shut down of USS cost the area 30,000 good paying jobs, the people moved out and because of panic selling, property values dropped leading to the present demographics. Many, perhaps most, of those homes are still owned as rental properties by people living outside the city.

So? At the end of the '70's the site of the Galleria was woods and pastures.

Today, which is when we're talking about, Legion Field sits in a bad part of town. Do you take your life in your hands going to a game there? No. Do many fans think you do, and stay away as a result? Unquestionably.

UAB Band Dad's post emphasized that fan amenities are the main sticking point of playing games at Legion Field. For the teams, it is state of the art for locker rooms, lighting and playing surface.

Legion Field should have been replaced (as so many of its contemporary - and NEWER - stadiums have been). One such was just imploded recently. Only the suburban and rural desire to hobble the central city has kept that replacement from being built by 2018. B'ham should not even be faced with the costs of refurbishing Legion Field - at the cost of tens of millions - but here we are into 2018 with no certain alternative.

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

It's better than nothing, but still a worn out dump in an run down part of town. A newer facility in Uptown, within walking distance of restaurants & motels, would be astronomically better!

That "run down part of town? was populated by middle class whites until US Steel shut down at the end of the 1970s. Many UA medical students lived in Elyton Village housing (including my wife in her first marriage) at that time. When the shut down of USS cost the area 30,000 good paying jobs, the people moved out and because of panic selling, property values dropped leading to the present demographics. Many, perhaps most, of those homes are still owned as rental properties by people living outside the city.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

And you can't seriously believe that the World Games factors into the calculus. Or, maybe I'm wrong. Hell, there might be literally hundreds of people coming to Birmingham for an event nobody has heard of involving sports nobody cares about.

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

It's better than nothing, but still a worn out dump in an run down part of town. A newer facility in Uptown, within walking distance of restaurants & motels, would be astronomically better!

That "run down part of town? was populated by middle class whites until US Steel shut down at the end of the 1970s. Many UA medical students lived in Elyton Village housing (including my wife in her first marriage) at that time. When the shut down of USS cost the area 30,000 good paying jobs, the people moved out and because of panic selling, property values dropped leading to the present demographics. Many, perhaps most, of those homes are still owned as rental properties by people living outside the city.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

And you can't seriously believe that the World Games factors into the calculus. Or, maybe I'm wrong. Hell, there might be literally hundreds of people coming to Birmingham for an event nobody has heard of involving sports nobody cares about.

The World Games are on the list of events the city is responsible for hosting regardless of how famous they are.

My point about the area around Legion Field is that such conditions are not necessarily permanent. If the right efforts are exerted, they can be upgraded to more desirable levels, but such things take money and time. If you look at the photos of the UAB neighborhood before 1970, you would see a similar demographic to what is now around Legion Field. If a similar hopeless approach was taken back then, UAB might have never been started.

(12-01-2017 02:01 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote: That "run down part of town? was populated by middle class whites until US Steel shut down at the end of the 1970s. Many UA medical students lived in Elyton Village housing (including my wife in her first marriage) at that time. When the shut down of USS cost the area 30,000 good paying jobs, the people moved out and because of panic selling, property values dropped leading to the present demographics. Many, perhaps most, of those homes are still owned as rental properties by people living outside the city.

So? At the end of the '70's the site of the Galleria was woods and pastures.

Today, which is when we're talking about, Legion Field sits in a bad part of town. Do you take your life in your hands going to a game there? No. Do many fans think you do, and stay away as a result? Unquestionably.

I understand what your saying but take the radious, 1.5 miles have some of the most beautiful traditional homes in the greater city of Birmingham. Or was 15 years ago. How far is Birmingham Southern from Legion. Just one of the most traditional, Prestigious schools in the area and Alabama. Don't see legion falling down anytime soon. Theirs a half mile radious where its Ghetto but haven't been their in 15 years you know better than I do.

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

I don't mind Legion Field or the area. I've never had a bad experience there. But the consensus is that it is a dump in a dangerous part of town, and it is a liability in terms of program reputation and making a case for moving to a better conference.

This $30 million commitment would sound to me like an admission that the Uptown stadium will never happen. Doing both doesn't make any sense.

(12-01-2017 09:06 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: I must be the only UAB fan in existence who doesn't mind Legion Field.

I don't mind Legion Field or the area. I've never had a bad experience there. But the consensus is that it is a dump in a dangerous part of town, and it is a liability in terms of program reputation and making a case for moving to a better conference.

This $30 million commitment would sound to me like an admission that the Uptown stadium will never happen. Doing both doesn't make any sense.

You are correct that $30 million is a lot to spend on a nearly century old stadium, but then, it is the only venue of its size in this part of Alabama. It should have been replaced decades ago, but the last effort to do so was prevented by being voted down in 1998.

So here we are almost in 2018 still waiting for a replacement stadium to be built by someone who can. Maybe "RAPS" will show up after all these years.